“No excuse”: former student drug dealer jailed

A former St Andrews student has been sentenced to four months in prison for dealing in class A drugs and specifically for supplying them to St Andrews student Lewis Greig.

Stewart Wright supplied the controlled drug dimethyl-alpha-methyl-phenthylamine – commonly known as DOC – on 9 April 2013. The drug is similar to LSD and was supplied as small drops on top of sugar cubes.

The police officers who searched Mr Wright’s flat found him to be in possession of 3.6ml of DOC, or 150 single drops, priced at a street value of £5 per drop. He was also in possession of 4.6 grams of cannabis.

The student Mr Wright had supplied with DOC, Lewis Greig, died last year after a reaction to the drug. He and a friend had gone to Mr Wright under the impression that they were buying LSD. He was on life support for three days before his family made the decision to turn it off.

This was Mr Wright’s first offence and his defence lawyer excused his behaviour to the court, saying it was the “result of naivety and peer pressure”.

Mr Wright “accepted responsibility”, according to the lawyer. He pled guilty to the charges. When police officers visited his house on 10 April 2013, having heard of him while pursuing a separate case, he handed over a vial of the drug.

Sheriff Charles Macnair told the court that as a “highly educated and intelligent man” Mr Wright “must have known the consequences” of his actions. He said that as he had not been “forced into” drug dealing through poverty or hardship unlike many who appear before the court, it “makes it rather worse”.

The sheriff told Mr Wright that there was “no excuse at all for what you were doing”.

He told the court that the sentence would have been six months if Mr Wright had not pled guilty and if this had not been his first offence.

11 COMMENTS

This is a rather shoddily researched piece of journalism. I suspect had there been as direct a relationship between the accused and the victim, then the charge and consequent sentence would have been considerably more severe. To make a direct link between the 2 issues leaves the journalist open to legal challenge

Thankfully what little drug use there was in the town has been completely eradicated now that this man has been charged and put away. Your daughter will be in a town full of relatively well-off 18-23 year-olds with ample amount of free time between classes and multiple events. Drugs aren’t needed.

This guy isn’t Pablo Escobar, he didn’t supply all the drugs in East Scotland. There will always be drug dealers, in St Andrews, Fife, London, Manchester, Canada, Japan, wherever, no matter how many of them are in prison.

At any university in the UK or Europe or the world, there will be drugs. If your daughter is responsible, then she won’t take them even if offered.

Drugs are available in all Universities. If your daughter wants to take drugs she will be able to find them wherever she is. St Andrews certainly does not have a drug problem, and she will not find herself in a situation where she is peer-pressured into taking them. She very well may be exposed to them, like anywhere else, but if you have done your job as a parent well she will know how to make a responsible decision.

There is a massive difference in law between ‘supplying’ and ‘causing death’ – the latter would be dealt with as a culpable homicide charge under Scots Law. My suspicion on this case is that no link was proven and certainly there must have been other contributing factors in the tragic death of Mr Greig.